Eisai and Broad Institute agree tropical disease/TB research alliance

Eisai has announced a new disease research collaboration with the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The company will be allying with the research facility to jointly discover and develop therapeutic agents for the treatment of neglected tropical diseases and tuberculosis (TB), via the optimisation of compounds screened from Broad's chemical library.

Beginning with a project to conduct drug discovery research aimed at the creation of a novel treatment for Chagas disease, the collaboration has already received a pledge of funding support from the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund.

The Broad Institute is a collaborative facility that includes top researchers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eisai said it is committed to "ensuring access to medicines in emerging and developing countries in order to better contribute to increasing the benefits provided to patients and their families throughout those regions".

This comes after the company expanded its marketing and supply agreement with Arena Pharmaceuticals for the anti-obesity agent lorcaserin hydrochloride last week.